I first put a version of this list together when a couple of my friends were moving away from Norfolk, Va. and it got me thinking about where I would eat my last meals in Norfolk if I were ever to move away (Don’t worry Ingrid, I never will!). So here’s a list of the 10 best meals Norfolk has to offer, voted on by a panel of me.

10. Machismo—Boca Burrito with all the veggies and vegan sour cream and vegan cheese. I think maybe machismo means “Home of the Monster Burrito” in Spanish.

9. Dragon City—Vegetable Dumplings as an appetizer followed by vegan General Tso's Chicken. It’s Chinese fast food just as you want it—greasily delicious!

8. Taco Bell—Two Crunch Wraps with beans substituting beef, no nacho cheese, no sour cream, add guacamole. Taco Bell is wonderfully delicious (that’s right, I said it), but I’m including it on my list because the employees there are so nice. Who would've thought it'd be the Taco Bell employees who would be the nicest?

7. Yorgo's Bageldashery—Chickette Sandwich on a Poppy Seed Bagel with a Toasted Sesame Seed Bagel with Vegan Cream Cheese. It shouldn't be special to have vegan cream cheese at a bagel shop, but it is, so kudos to Yorgo's.

6. Rajput—Vegetable Samosa as an appetizer (of course!) followed by some Palak Tofu as the main course. It's always been a dream of mine to write a book of reviews of samosas. I essentially never pass up the opportunity to order one. The owners of Rajput are super friendly, I love the copper cups, and I really love the Palak Tofu.

5. Kotobuki—Veggie Sushi and some fake meat dish (hmm… lets go with the teriyaki ham). Something about funky table and being forced to take off my shoes really makes me like it there. Plus I love courses – and when you get a salad, sushi, and a main dish you'll get plenty. And if you order enough sushi then it comes on a wooden boat (a boatload of sushi!)

4. Tap House—Chickette Sandwich. It's not just the food that makes me love Tap House, though I do like the newish chickette sandwich and their fries are delicious. I also give the Tap House points because it’s nice that Neil knows what I drink—though I guess water isn’t the most difficult order to remember…Oh, and while eating there put in some of quarters in the wonderful indie rock filled juke box and play some pool.

3. Bangkok Garden—Spring Rolls for an appetizer; Garlic Tofu for the main course. This one kinda goes without saying. Garlic Tofu is just such a staple I always feel like I should order something different but I have so much trouble bringing myself to.

2. Amalfi—Veggie pizza with faux chicken and soy cheese; Vegan Cheesecake for dessert. It's a little pricier than most of these other meals but amazingly delicious—'nuff said.

1. Bella's Pizzeria—Soy cheese pizza Bianca-style, with olives and broccoli. The soy cheese novelty/wonderfulness makes Bella an easy choice as my favorite. It's the one restaurant I really crave going to and conveniently it’s the restaurant closest to my home.There’s a lot more great food in Norfolk, these are just my favorite meals. If you’ve visited Norfolk or live here, post your favorite meals that the area has to offer. And if you’re on the fence about wanting to apply to work for PETA I hope this run down of some of the wonderful food in the area helps push you along the way. - Joel

• Workers dragged injured pigs out of the facility by their snouts, ears, and legs before killing them with a captive-bolt gun. Some of the pigs had "KILL" spray-painted on their backs.
• A farm supervisor admitted that he violently beat pigs, saying of one that he "cut the sh** out of his God damn nose with a f***ing gate rod."
• Workers cut off piglets' tails and pulled out piglets' testicles—without using any pain relief—as the baby animals screamed in pain in front of mother pigs.
• Two workers and a supervisor hit and jabbed pigs—sometimes in their faces and near their ears—with 2-foot-long metal gate rods on 31 of the 41 days that PETA's investigator worked.
• A worker gouged the eyes of four pigs with his fingers. Pigs suffered from ailments including cysts, sores, and a uterine prolapse for which they were denied treatment.

That’s right, folks—I am taking a week off to spend Christmas with my family in DC. I’ll be back, refreshed (hopefully) and ready to go after the New Year, but in the meantime my good friend Joel Bartlett will be manning the blog, so don’t be too concerned if the high intellectual standards we have set here on the PETA Files flag a little bit during the next week—it’s only a temporary state of affairs. Joel will doubtless be keeping you up-to-the-minute on his favorite TV shows and, like, what he ate for dinner the night before, so keep checking for the new entries, and try your hardest to hang on until I’m back again in January. Happy Holidays!

Joel Bartlett with Waffles

Joel Bartlett with Battleaxe

If you’ve been following this story over the past few days, you’ll know that Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina that runs an egg factory farm to cover its costs, has announced that it will be phasing out its egg production and switching to a new industry following a PETA investigation and subsequent pressure on the monks from our offices. And if you’ve been following my posts on the topic, you’ll know that a number of South Carolina residents who are familiar with the monastery have commented to say that they’re unhappy about this decision, claiming that it was unfair of us to go after the monks because they are decent men who do a lot of good in the community.

The way I see it, however, is that holy men—who should be setting an example for the people who look to them for guidance—need to be particularly accountable for cruel or unethical actions. While we have come to expect that CEOs of large corporations are going to be primarily concerned with their bottom line (and thus less immediately receptive to our concerns about their practices), in a case like this one—where good people have gone astray and are ignoring or failing to understand the fact that they are inflicting terrible suffering—it is all the more important that they be brought up short and asked to consider the damage they’re doing. Being a monk doesn’t mean that you should get off scott free when you’re caught doing something unethical—on the contrary, it means you should be held to a higher standard.

Anyone who has seen our investigation should know that the practices these monks were engaging in (such as confining chickens in cages so small that they had no room to move and denying sick animals veterinary care), as well as the practices that they were directly supporting (their suppliers slice off chicks’ beaks with a hot blade and grind up unwanted male chicks in a macerator), are cruel in the extreme, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s all you really need to know about this case. This factory farm needed to be shut down whether it was run by money-grubbing fat cats or honorable but misguided holy men. Fortunately for us, and for the chickens, it was the latter.

For a more eloquent statement of these ideas, you can read the letter that PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich wrote to the Abbey when this investigation first broke here.